On 14 September, the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and the Revolutionary Clandestine Indigenous Committee-General Command of the EZLN publicly pronounced themselves in favor of the release of Mario Luna, a spokesperson from the Yaqui people in the state of Sonora, who was arrested on 11 September, “falsely accused of crimes that were fabricated [against him]; with this, they seek to arrest the very struggle of the Yaqui tribe to defend the waters that in 1940 were recognized as theirs by Lázaro Cárdenas following a long war, and that since 2010 owners of capital have sought to take away from them by means of the Independence aqueduct.” The two groups denounced that said aqueduct “is said to be constructed so that the poor have water and progress, as those from above call it, but [in fact] it is so that the rich take away the water that for centuries has belonged to the Yaquis. Instead of irrigating crops, they want to take it for the large industries in Sonora.”

For the CNI and the General Command, the developmentalist megaprojects are a threat to the lives of indigenous peoples, given that “they want to kill us with wind-energy plants, highways, mines, dams, airports, and drug-trafficking; today, above all, it hurts us that they want to kill us in Sonora with aqueducts.” For this reason, they demanded “the immediate release of Mario Luna; we call for the cancellation of all arrest-orders against him and the fabrication of charges against members of the Yaqui tribe and, together with this, we demand the release of all our prisoners and particularly that of our Nahua brothers Juan Carlos Flores Solís and Enedina Rosas Vélez, who have been imprisoned by the bad government since April, similarly accused falsely of fabricated crimes, toward the end of halting the struggle of the Front of Peoples in Defense of Water and Land in Morelos, Puebla, and Tlaxcala against the comprehensive infrastructural project for Morelos.”

Beyond this, the Network against Repression and for Solidarity identified Sonoran Governor Guillermo Padrés and President Enrique Peña Nieto as responsible for the health and safety of Mario Luna: “We hold them responsible for any repressive act that is taken against the Yaquis. Above all, we call on our comrades from this network, the Sixth, who feel this attack as your own to express your solidarity by protesting and pronouncing yourselves according to your means and forms in favor of the liberty of our comrade Mario Luna and against this attack on the Yaqui people.”

On 8 July, members of 38 social organizations organized a “Disjointed National Mobilization” involving roadblocks and protests in Mexico City, Yucatán, Chiapas, Veracruz, Puebla, Oaxaca, Morelos, and Chihuahua. The mobilization was organized to demand the release of Juan Carlos Flores Solís, Enedina Rosas Vélez, and Abraham Cordero Calderón, who have been imprisoned in Puebla state since April of this year for their opposition to the Comprehensive Morelos Project (PIM).

PIM, which is overseen by the Federal Electricity Commission, seeks to build two geothermal plants as well as an aqueduct and a gas pipeline to supply these plants; the additional infrastructure would cross the states of Morelos, Puebla, and Tlaxcala. The construction works are being conceded to transnational firms, both Spanish and Italian.

Also during the mobilization, organizations demanded the release of Marco Antonio Suastegui, spokesperson for the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP), who was detained in the state of Nayarit on 17 June. The member organizations note in a communique that “we cannot allow the bad governments to continue imprisoning members of our people so that the conquistadores of today who own the large transnational corporations have all the ability to continue looting us of our land, polluting our nature, threatening our life, destroying our culture, and violating our rights.”